The invention relates in general to munitions and in particular to multi-purpose munitions.
Energetic devices such as grenades, mortars and artillery rounds serve to perform a dedicated or specific mission. Munitions may be employed to provide lethality, smoke, concussion or shock effects. However, munitions are currently designed to provide a single capability. This does not allow the warfighter to quickly respond to today's quickly changing battlefield without increased physical burden.
With the variety of effects needed in modern Field Engagements, single purpose munitions can prove to be a logistical and economic hindrance. Drawbacks include overall unit cost of each munition, the need to transport and store a large number of munitions and safety issues related to energetic devices.
Multi-purpose munitions exist; however, current approaches are inadequate. One known solution provides a grenade which may be used as both a fragmentation and concussion grenade. There are drawbacks to this solution as manual removal of the fragmentation skin is required to switch from lethal to non-lethal mode. This is a time consuming process for a soldier in the field and may be irreversible. Scalable munitions are another known approach. However, these munitions also require manual assembly by the user.
A need exists for an improved multi-purpose munition which does not require manual assembly or disassembly to switch from one mode to another.